I would like to preface this post by saying I am not a lawyer, but my uncle is. I have spoken with him in depth over the years I've been practicing about witchcraft and the law of the United States, and had a refresher conversation a few days ago in preparation for this post and to make sure this legal information is up to date. These laws are also only applicable in the United States, I don't have information about how other countries might have their laws set up for these things.
So last week there was an incident on tumblr. I won't go into too much depth, but it revolved primarily around a shop selling spirit companions for people doing spirit work and one of the people involved being 14 and having only been practicing their spirit work for about 9 months. The end result was a lot of mean and nasty comments, including several people saying it's illegal for minors to be selling metaphysical items even with the supervision of an adult, and several people wondering if the older member of the shop had permission to be teaching/mentoring the 14 year old in a witchcraft related field. All of which has led me to this post - a post talking about the laws of the United States in regards to witchcraft and related topics.
#1 Minors and Witchcraft
Many minors (people under 18) become interested in witchcraft for a variety of reasons. Rebellion against overly religious parents who are Christian/Catholic/ect seems to be one of the most common reasons I've seen, and that's where the trouble starts. They come to the internet to try and learn, but they don't have the critical thinking skills to pick apart what they read from often outdated or biased articles from 'popular' authors that they don't know to avoid because they're notorious for being racist/sexist/ect. So they try to learn directly from people in the craft, only to be told "No." and they don't understand why. A lot of adults don't even really understand the legality of it, they just know they can get in legal trouble and stay away from it.
The deal is this - the United States has a law that says parents/legal guardians have the right to determine what they call a child's 'religious upbringing'. Despite that it is 50/50 secular and religious, witchcraft falls under the umbrella of 'pagan religion' along with things like Wicca. What this basically means is that if someone has super strict Christian parents and they find out an adult has been teaching/mentoring their child in anything that falls under the 'pagan religion' umbrella they can get the adult in trouble for interfering with their child's religious upbringing if that adult is also located in the US (as I said before, not sure how this works with other countries so I can't speak for that).
Now while this isn't common, it does happen. Especially in the Bible Belt and places like Texas that are super religious. So most witches are just protecting themselves from legal backlash by refusing to teach minors. And at the same time they're also protecting the minors from parental wrath - many adult witches I have talked to were in that situation once themselves, or know someone who was. They weren't lucky enough to be raised with understanding parents, and know that if such people don't know they can take legal action or just don't feel like it the minor can really suffer if they get found out from verbal/mental/emotional abuse to physical abuse to punishments like getting their only means of communication with people outside of their home and school environment taken away.
So not only is it technically illegal for an adult to teach a minor witchcraft without permission from their parent or legal guardian, but there can be backlash on the part of the minor if they're found out too and witches are usually just trying to protect everyone all around by saying no to actually teaching or mentoring a minor.
2. The Migratory Bird Act
A lot of witches are interested in bird feathers and skeletons, and that's great! But there's a lot of misconception about the Migratory Bird Act and what it does and does not apply to. So let me make it simple - the Migratory Bird Act applies to ALL WILD SPECIES OF BIRD not just endangered species like a lot of people seem to think.
Long story short, people came here from other countries and were free from many hunting restrictions that existed in the 1800's and early 1900's. They started massively hunting birds because people wanted the feathers, and the government had to put a stop to it because they were actually smart back then and realized if they didn't do something people would hunt all the native species of bird to extinction.
The reason this is still in place is to stop people from creating a supply. Without supply the demand is kept low and in the shadows, and the birds are relatively safe. Allowing things like hunting for wild turkey, pheasant and duck that are relatively common helps with this as well as our domestication of chickens and other bird species.
Legally speaking, you cannot own or sell anything from birds unless they were hunted within the bounds of the law like mentioned above or come from a domesticated species. This includes feathers, egg shells and skeletons. Now the government isn't going to come down on you for picking up a random bird feather or doing some vulture culture stuff with a dead bird you found, but they will get after you for trying to sell things made with those parts. There are exceptions to the rules, of course, such as how Native Americans can own things with bald eagle feathers legally (though my uncle could not find anything on if they were allowed to sell those things as well) but they're very restrictive.
A good example of this is the crow bits I have - when I was living with my grandmother I made friends with the corvids living in the area by leaving them food and they rewarded me with all manner of things from coins to broken jewelry to a few feathers and even more left behind around their food spot naturally shed when they took off. I also found a dead one in the woods and buried it to let nature do its thing then dug the bones up later and cleaned them off more properly, though I really only have the skull and some of the wing bones since the rest were too damaged or small to warrant keeping. I made a witch ladder for home protection out of them, weaving the bones into the thread and tying it off with the feathers at the end. I don't intend to sell this, because it's illegal to do so and technically illegal to even have those parts in the first place but as long as I'm not trying to sell the parts it's highly unlikely I'll get in trouble.
But I've made and sold witch ladders with chicken bones and craft store feathers in them, because that's not illegal. Chickens are a common and domesticated species and I have the bones from just having a whole chicken that I boiled for soup stock and kept the bones afterwards. The feathers you find at the craft store often come from chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other domestic species that have the feathers stripped before their bodies are processed for sale as food.
So remember - it's very unlikely you'll get in trouble for picking up random parts here and there that you find as long as you're not trying to sell them and don't have a super massive collection. But if you are going to sell or have a big collection make it legal parts so you don't get in trouble for it.
3. Witchcraft and Bodily Fluids
This is one I feel like I shouldn't have to talk about but apparently I do - don't mess with people's food for the sake of witchcraft. As a kitchen witch this one especially hits home for me and I really, really hate it when people do this kind of thing.
First and foremost, it's illegal. We had kids arrested for putting laxatives in the condiment bottles of the cafeteria in high school and people get in trouble at places that serve food for not giving people what they asked for - most notably things like not giving low-fat coffee or gluten-free foods when asked for and having people suffer terrible reactions to them because hey, they have medical conditions that require these dietary restrictions.
A lot of witches will do things like spit in something they intend to feed to someone as a curse. And, of course there is an old tradition of female witches collecting their menstrual blood and baking it into cookies or cakes and feeding those to the person (man) they want to love them. And while I'll admit that spits for curses are great, and there are advantages to menstrual blood for plants you aren't intending to consume (like succulents and flowers), those things do not belong in food unless you're consuming it yourself or the person/people you're feeding it to know what they are about to consume.
Both intentionally getting someone's order wrong and the examples of bodily fluids in food are technically forms of assault and you can get in trouble for them. Though I feel like I shouldn't have to tell people this, I see it often enough on tumblr and in other witchy communities that it bears repeating here while I'm talking about legality and witchcraft.
And that's that. As I said, these laws apply within the United States and I cannot speak for other countries. My uncle gave me the best of his legal knowledge on the subjects as he is a practicing lawyer. Some of the laws are downright stupid and may seem irrelevant, but they are the law and people do get in legal trouble over this kind of stuff so make sure you follow the law when you're practicing your witchcraft to cover your own rear ends and keep yourself out of legal trouble.
Next week I'll be talking about Beltane since that falls on May 1st, and the week after I think I'll cover a similar topic about consent and witchcraft. Stay tuned if those kinds of topics interest you!
Banner was made by me in Photoshop.
If you like this content resteems, upvotes and comments are much appreciated <3